The spirit of this, caring for objects that have helped people for a long time so they can be used for years to come, is something I try to develop in regards to software.
I try to point out to people who use words like "legacy" as an insult that the system having reached that status and still being maintained is a sign that it has served a lot in the past and probably can if maintained with care. I think the "my dream would be to rewrite it from scratch using [FOTM language]" is a bad mindset.
I think we should be curious about old software like we are about many physical old objects. You wouldn't visit a windmill and call it a terrible relic of the past; you would marvel at how ingenuous people had been with so little back then).
By cherishing and caring for what we have been handed over, we have a great opportunity to maintain and improve it, and hand it over to the next generation/team.
I live in Japan where the care for other people work is everywhere, and i can witness how it then motivate people to do their best, and cultivate a culture of respect and care.
While I generally agree with your sentiment, I find the windmill example a bit lacking. Two thoughts:
(a) Wind mills _are_ relics from the past. They were replaced with [FOTM mills] as soon as better alternatives became available (probably during the industrial revolution?).
(b) Wind mills themselves are only the pinnacle of what was possible at that time and as [FOTM mills], they have replaced other types of mills (ox- or hand-driven) that came before them.
Still, your point stands, software can be build to last the test of time. I "maintain" two (tiny) Haskell libraries [0] that each do one very specific thing. And those have been basically unchanged since I wrote them five years ago.
[0] 18 stars on Github is worth something, right? ... right? :-)
> They were replaced with [FOTM mills] as soon as better alternatives became available (probably during the industrial revolution?).
This is not true. The definition of "better" doesn't exist as it's subjective. Windmills of all types exist today, and co-existed back then. Some people like certain trade-offs, and other people like other trade-offs. Saying for example that a metal tool is better than a wood tool is simply wrong. Some people to this day use very old technology, very much on purpose, because they deem it superior. People still marvel at stone buildings even though modern buildings use cement. There are different types or cement actually and all have pros and cons. Like Roman cement may last longer at the cost of needing more time/money whereas modern cement can be mass produced.
You can find analogies in software where old C tools are to this day cherished by many. Another example is people collecting retro hardware, or recreating old software like SerenityOS.
Some "improvements" may not be seem as such by some users, the same way an old master cheese maker does not see an industrial steel milk mixer as an improvement for what they are trying to do, as well the lifestyle they are trying to promote.
I covered that feeling in this submission[0]. Software can evolve, but sometimes software already does all of what it is supposed to, yet the world around it changes.
For example, angular, react, vue, etc. You can follow these tools as their popularity comes and go, but at the end of the day they exist on top of HTML/CSS/JS. So while these 3 basic blocks are there to stay forever, the tools on top are a game of musical chairs.
I'm not saying that they are bad. I've been using them at works for years. I'm saying that some people chose to focus on "old" tech and produce web pages and webapps without much tools. The advantage of this approach is that your environment is stable so you can actually learn and master the tools. You can even find crazy tricks and "abuse" some of the features as you become really good at those.
It can be liberating to stop changing tools every year, but instead learn the intricacies of the basic tools that will never change.
I have been thinking about this but for new things.
It’s interesting to consider that almost everything we purchase can be improved immediately. Usually there are cost savings that result in sub-par properties.
Some random examples:
-Injection molded kitchen ware can’t easily have through holes to drain water during dishwashing. This can easily be fixed :)
-New windows don’t always have high quality silicone sealant at the interface between the window and the wood.One can add this to prevent condensation in the gaps (use blue tape to mask everywhere you don’t want the silicone)
-New clothes don’t have extra anti-stain materials near the collars, which is where they wear out firstly
First thing I do with a trash can is drill some holes a few inches from the bottom. When the bag is full the holes will let in some air and make bag removal much easier. Keep the holes away from the bottom to reduce the risk of a broken bag leaking any spilled liquids.
The containers of salt I buy have the classic flip top aluminum pour spout. The tip of the spout can be bent away from the lid to aid in opening and reduce the risk of fingernail injury.
Those are both great tips! I bought a trash can (a Nordic brand) recently and it did have holes in the bottom. I actually noticed how easy it was to pull the bag out. No suction. In regard to salt, I recommend getting a salt pig! I just got one recently. If you cook a lot the ease of access is great.
there is something beautiful in the variety of ways a simple trashcan can be drilled and cut up; custom drain-holes must have so much variation; what’s the average volume of liquid garbage people are willing to tolerate before it overflows
Variation yes but I don't know about functional variation. I'd think the answers to liquid tolerance are either "no holes at all" or "holes at least 10cm up" with basically no need for any other categories.
Well I can't think of any reason to push it and cut really low. Give yourself a hand width and then go for the hole punch. That's only a few percent of the way up.
The point is, if you're trying to contain some amount of fluid, you cut pretty near but not entirely near the bottom. If you want a waterproof container, you don't cut at all. That's about it. Nobody's going to vary the location for functional reasons. And don't get too hung up on my example number.
> It’s interesting to consider that almost everything we purchase can be improved immediately. Usually there are cost savings that result in sub-par properties.
I think it's not just purchases, it's basically everything we ever come in contact with. See e.g. the fact that in software there seems to be a never ending set of long-hanging fruit tasks that can always be assigned to onboard new team members.
More generally there seems to be the great cycle of off-the-shelf -> customization -> full integration -> modularization -> off-the-shelf that affects everything and, given the time and energy, you can always move "forward" in this cycle.
A professor of mine once quipped that it's far quicker and cheaper to buy something similar to what you want, produced in consumer quantities, and then modify it.
Which was a different and useful way of looking at modern products: something new can still be "raw material."
I feel this. As someone who owns a forty-plus year old car that has more than 770,000 miles on it, I care much more about function than appearance. I don't want original - I want better. When something goes wrong, I see what, I see why, and I try to fix it so it's better and stronger than before.
Likewise, I don't strive for authentic and original when fixing up old VAXen, Amigas, or Macs. I want functional, and I want new caps that're better than original.
It's nice to know there's an appreciation for not original, but better.
Speaking of old Macs, I use a 1993 Apple M1242 Adjustable Keyboard (via USB Wombat) as my daily driver※.
When I first learned of Kintsugi a few years ago, my keyboard was the first thing I thought of. The original keyboard had about half of the keys non-functional or working incorrectly (double/triple letters). So I got a second keyboard and ended up testing all keys on both, keeping the working ones on the original, and desoldering/resoldering the working ones from the donor to the original. This took a few months on and off since I'd keep discovering new keys that were slightly broken or intermittent.
I also modified the keyboard to remove a couple of plastic tabs, to make the top covers easier to remove (since I had to do it so many times). The ribbon cable connecting both halves is also prone to failure, so I sanded down some of the plastic around it to ensure it wouldn't get snagged or compressed (and ordered a spare cable from a parts keyboard as well). I also did a bit of Retrobrite to restore it to its original colour.
Anyway, you really have to love something a lot to put that much effort into it (and probably wouldn't have bothered/had time if I had a baby when I got it a few years ago).
I actually have quite the opposite feeling for my 35-year-old car - I've tried to keep it as stock as possible. It's still got the period-accurate radar detector (police probably use bands outside of what it can pick up), tape deck (I've never once played a tape in it), _car phone_ (AMPS was dead before I bought the car)... But I get a sense of enjoyment out of keeping it the way it was originally intended.
That said, I have had to make some concessions to the future. It was next to impossible to find stock lamps - they're just inches off the ground, and not made of laminated glass. They'll shatter easily due to road debris. I can buy old, foggy replacements for $200. But I actually ended up buying one-off plastic lamps for $30. At least this way, they'll not only look better, but last longer.
That is impressive mileage. I've heard mention that classic car owners are especially excited to keep their show vehicles running indefinitely with new 3D printed parts.
Diesel Chevette with Isuzu 4FB1 engine and five speed. It's an engine meant for generators, forklifts and other industrial applications. It's incredibly robust.
Mine turned 50 this year. Mileage is over 500k but hard to see since odometer has only 5 digits. But most of the powertrain has been rebuilt and upgraded, as have many other parts, so it's a bit of a Ship of Theseus situation.
I have a slight obsession with fixing things. I think it's just in my engineering blood. Beyond software and other little trinkets, I've also taken a penchant for old houses. I just bought an old home and the amount of simple things that can be "kintsugi'ed" is astronomical. The house is chock full of broken old stuff that can be made better with some love.
One cool example of the period charm is a "butler bell" in the dining room. I had never seen or heard of this concept before, but basically it's a rope/pulley system that rings a bell in the kitchen to notify your butler that you need him. That way, the butler can stay in the kitchen while the bourgeoisie feast in peace.
I'm slightly doubtful that this is an authentic thing (by which I mean: "actually practiced in the 15th/16th centuries"). Most of the content around this technique on the web is not in Japanese, and even the Japanese Wikipedia entry about it [0] is quite terse.
Or maybe it's just that non-Japanese people have more interest in it than Japanese do?
If anyone has more knowledge about kintsugi, I would love some historical references which confirm that this technique was actually used in the past.
The Smithsonian has about a hundred objects listed with "gold lacquer repair", most items have a date and location listed which goes back to 16th century Japan [0]. To be fair, I suppose these repairs could have been done on old objects in more recent times, I'm not really sure if there are any writings or documents describing the process from that time period.
Yeah, this is one of those things that everyone seems to know about, but when you ask Japanese people, most are like, “That’s a thing? Maybe I’ve seen it but probably not.”
There are… a lot of things like this, and I’m not sure why Japan is made out to be more mythical than most countries.
Japanese not knowing about things Japanese seems to be common. Most younger Japanese don't seem to know the difference between a Buddhist temple (tera) and a Shinto shrine (jinja). I'm pretty sure the kintsugi stuff stems from Shinto ideas. Shinto can enshrine anything as sacred. Usually it is an object from nature, but it doesn't have to be; it can be something people have created (matsuru (verb) - to make a god; matsuri (noun) - a festival (celebrating a god). It can be an object that someone has loved or used for a long time. If used in a negative way, such objects can become "cursed," or perhaps "angry" that they have been abused. This seems to be projection, of course. This isn't voodoo; Japanese are probably aware of this. The enshrining in this case has been degraded to "care for," at least in terms of repairing the item. This may be more recent as a more prevalent idea, but I think the inclination, due to Shinto, has been there for a long time.
>Most of the content around this technique on the web is not in Japanese
How would one know, except if they do read Japanese and searched their bibliography (including old tomes)?
Merely searching for the japanese version of the term on Google might not be the best way - the Japanese might just implicit use the technique without naming it and writing much about it, for example. Or might have different terms for the practice, and that's just one that caught on in the west as the catch-all term.
Plus it might not been a popular practice there for way over 50+ years (as they had been busy recovering from WWII and modernizing their industry), which is the same time span when westerners discovered it.
Basically nobody in Japan has ever heard of this. Whenever I'm hanging out in Japan and run across another viral post about "The ancient and time-honored Japanese tradition of goldjoin", I ask Japanese people about it in Japanese*
Not once has anyone heard of it.
It's just another fake viral sensation that we cooked up in the USA
There's plenty of historical evidence that it's been done, but it's not some common thing that people in Japan regularly do. Modern Japanese people actually love buying disposable plastic crap, then throwing it out when there's the slightest thing wrong with it.
Since they're right next door to China, they can get a lot of fairly nice plastic stuff at the dollar store. You pop into the 100 yen store, and pay 100 yen +tax for the exact same plastic junk that would cost you $5 to $20 per item at Target or Wal-Mart in the USA
* For the record, I'm not asking "What's kintsugi?", I'm asking "Hey, have you ever heard of this thing where you fix a broken item using gold? Like gold glue?", and I show them the viral post du jour
>Basically nobody in Japan has ever heard of this. Whenever I'm hanging out in Japan and run across another viral post about "The ancient and time-honored Japanese tradition of goldjoin", I ask Japanese people about it in Japanese
Not once has anyone heard of it.*
Almost nobody one would casually ask in Europe has heard of tons of European medieval, renaissance, or even 19th century techniques and terms either.
For example, 99.9% of the people don't know that Chopin is not a classical composer (it's a romantic one) - laymen just call the whole "old orchestral music" thing "classical".
How many know what chiaroscuro (a huge tradition once) means, or what a zither is?
>There's plenty of historical evidence that it's been done, but it's not some common thing that people in Japan regularly do.
Well, it was never a "common thing that people in Japan regularly do". It was a period-specific aesthetic choice of crafts artists.
>I'm asking "Hey, have you ever heard of this thing where you fix a broken item using gold? Like gold glue?", and I show them the viral post du jour
Sorry, someone's story said that modern Japanese would fix pottery using gold as glue?
Most don't even have any expensive pottery, aside household items they use for soup, to drink tea, and stuff. At best they'll have some ordinary vases...
Even TFA says: "a unique form of Japanese art restoration known as kintsugi."
Art restoration - not what Hiroshi Sixpack does to fix his broken tea cup or kitchen plate.
Are the pictures of bowls from that period repaired with this technique on the Wikipedia pages enough as historical references or are you looking for something else?
Most of the kintsugi photos on Wikipedia do not state the date nor the origin of the object they depict, except for one, so I'm looking for something a bit more substantial.
For what it's worth, I was familiar with this technique before seeing this or other non-Japanese articles. It doesn't have much relevance for daily life now which can explain why very few people seem to have heard of it, but I would imagine that people who study tea ceremony for example would be more likely to know about it.
that is very cool, i didnt know there was a word for it. i remember when i was a boy i would take apart random electronics that my dad gave to me. it was so fun, i tell you what, if someone created a store like how they have make and paint your own pottery stores but for taking apart, rebuilding, or freshly assembling electronics like my dad coached me with, i think it would be very popular and also help peak interest in electronics. kinda like build a bear but build a bot/radio/computer/basic tv or whatever
If you like this and want a serving of 'the feels', check out 'Repair Shop' - it's from the BBC and you can't stream whole episodes, but check them out here https://www.youtube.com/c/TheRepairShop
They do use CA glue directly on your body to do some bio patch work so the bulk ingredient is at least somewhat safe, though the medical grade stuff is crazy expensive and who knows what’s in the $1 tube as additives. (Like plastic, often but not always the chemicals of concern aren’t the main polymer but things added to it to improve its engineering qualities.)
I bought some Urushi online in a tube but I am hesitant to use it on tableware due to the caveats on the packacking that say you should wear gloves and eye protection. It doesn't really sound more healthy than cyanoacrylate.
The SDS would hopefully clear up or confirm your concerns, and I have no idea if the product you bought is food safe or not, but I would point out that you should definitely wear gloves to handle any strong glue, whether it's food safe or not, and that the solvents are often eye irritants. I'd discovered the hard way that the solvents in cyanoacrylate glues in particular are eye irritants. (Not a way to fix glasses, folks.)
So, for what it's worth, I personally would be neither deterred nor comforted by the information you presented.
However, "I do not understand if this is safe and don't have the time to research it to my satisfaction" is a totally solid reason for deciding not to do something on safety grounds in my book.
If you're able to email the company and ask for an SDS, they'll probably give it to you. I've had luck with this before.
I have used urushi for both kintsugi and wooden ware and while I can't speak to your urushi in particular generally do not get it on your skin. Similar to other resins, even if you have no reaction initially the more you come in contact with it, the more likely you are going to have a reaction. It's quite common for craftsmen that have worked with urushi for years to suddenly become sensitized to it. Also, some people can have severe allergic reactions to uncured urushi so care should be taken if this is your first time working with it. This is a reaction to uncured urushi however, cured urushi is quite safe.
For use on wooden tableware I would suggest.
- 1 coat of urushi diluted 1/2 with pine turpentine. Apply liberally to allow it to soak into the wood then wipe the entire surface down removing excess. Place in a closed box with (but not touching) a wet towel (make sure it doesn't dry out) for roughly 1 week. The moisture + time will cure the urushi.
- repeat 1 or 2 times (or as many times as you like) with undiluted urushi letting it cure between each coat.
To expand a bit on that for the curious, kintsugi is written as 金継ぎ. 金 is "gold" (the "kin" in kintsugi), so I replaced the "gold" part with the "cyanoacrylate" part, and glued it to the 継ぎ ending. Katakana (the symbols used for シアノアクリレート) is often used for foreign words. 金 and 継 are kanjis, characters that comes from China. They usually have different pronunciations depending on if they are alone or part of a word. ぎ is an hiragana, the hiragana for "gi". Hiragana and katakana are syllabaries that are mostly equivalent. ぎ in katakana would be ギ, and シアノアクリレート in hiragana would be しあのあくりれっと.
This reminds me of the old Roman concrete. It actually gets stronger when exposed to moisture. So far as I know, no modern concrete matches it for long term durability.
The title on the article, "Kintsugi – Art of Repair" is different than the title in the submission.
Came in to (also) say that kintsugi isn't about making things better, but more about the acceptance of the damage as part of the item's history which is sorta beautiful and poetic in its own way.
Yes. Submitted title was "Kintsugi – The art of repair to make broken things better than before", which broke the site guideline against editorializing: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." We've reverted it now. Thanks!
p.s. Notice how many comments in this thread are making objections to the distracting and extraneous word 'better' (which was, in the submitted title, but nowhere in the original article) that's a good example of (one reason) why we have this rule.
Does anyone have a recommendation for a "how to" instructional on this? Sometime ago one of my SOs grandmothers bowls broke and since then I thought about trying this.
Reading the article I apparently had the wrong impression on how this is done. They talk about lacquer mixed with gold dust ... I somehow got the impression that they use gold and capillary suction to get the gold to flow into the fracture.
There are a lot of kits out there but you have to be careful. I didn't really read up much on this and bought a kit and I think it was your basic epoxy with gold dust mixed in. In my case and the tiny letters confirm it, it meant the finished product is not really food safe and it's also not heat safe.
To display the bowls it works quite well... but that's about it.
But there are a lot of kits out there, and I still have some other items I might give another go with a better kit.
I've said it before and will say it again: There needs to be a good, cheap, easy, aesthetic way to fix cracked brittle plastics, kintsugi-style. My go-to example is my plastic laundry basket, whose structural integrity is severely compromised by one crack right in the top-middle of a long side.
I love the way this looks and in Japan they sell kits hobby/DIY stores with everything you need. They have them on Amazon too.
I thought this was an art form but, living in Japan I couldn't find any ... I found a couple of schools and the schools had student and teacher projects on display but I didn't find places selling much as "art" or "crafts". I'm not saying I found zero. Rather I'm saying I found so little that my conclusion is this is mostly (a) a fun hobby and (b) a service where you can hire someone to fix a cherished item.
Okay, I'm interested but not quite following. How so? Are we talking software, or do you mean to get more mileage out of hardware by fixing failed machines?
This sounds like a good idea for fixing iPhone backs. There is simply no easy way to fix them without taking over an hour even with a $1500 laser machine.
Here[0] a Japanese carpenter does something similar to old wood, because they are moving an old house to a new location. The whole process is filmed, and he also shows how he does different traditional Japanese joineries. I think it's as authentic as it gets.
I don't know about "better". Anyone who has repaired a mug with kintsugi and then put a hot cup of coffee in it, knows what I'm talking about. You're living a perpetual gamble with the quality of your patchwork.
Especially when a mug costs about $1 and lasts just about forever. On the rare occasion you drop it, just chuck it. There are much more important things which could be fixed.
That's mentioned in the article as well. It also mentions something called "mushin": the "Japanese philosophy of “no mind” (mushin), which encompasses the concepts of non-attachment, acceptance of change and fate as aspects of human life" although the Wikipedia article on that topic unfortunately focuses on mushin related to martial arts.
The first time I read your comment I understood it as "it took the cup five years to reach a state that it could be used (again)" because the lacquer takes so long to dry. That would have added another fine twist (patience) to Kintsugi :-)
I've done this with epoxy (sold as "food safe") and mica powder, and the results have gone through the dishwasher dozens of times just fine. Haven't poured boiling water in so far though.
As the other commenters have pointed out, "better" is kind of a weird take. I don't think the linked story uses the word "better" at all, and kintsugi isn't really about making something better - but rather about embracing imperfections and finding beauty in something that was broken and could have been discarded, but was instead restored to use.
I try to point out to people who use words like "legacy" as an insult that the system having reached that status and still being maintained is a sign that it has served a lot in the past and probably can if maintained with care. I think the "my dream would be to rewrite it from scratch using [FOTM language]" is a bad mindset.
I think we should be curious about old software like we are about many physical old objects. You wouldn't visit a windmill and call it a terrible relic of the past; you would marvel at how ingenuous people had been with so little back then).
By cherishing and caring for what we have been handed over, we have a great opportunity to maintain and improve it, and hand it over to the next generation/team.
I live in Japan where the care for other people work is everywhere, and i can witness how it then motivate people to do their best, and cultivate a culture of respect and care.